2.22.2012

In today's post, we wanted to bring to you a fun post - Dark Ascension standard constructed budget deck. We are not sure what to really call it however - budget Red Deck Wins, artifact nerf, or whatever so we decided to go with Flying Goblins as two of the cool cards in this build features something which goblins do best - become little ballistic burn spells on the game table.

The cool cards of which we speak are Goblin Grenade (one-drop gobby sac for a burn of 5), and Artillerize (a four drop gobby or artifact sac for 5 damage). The only creature spells in the build is Goblin Arsonist but the Kuldotha Rebirth sorcery does net you a veritable army of three self-destructive goblin scamps providing more ammunition to be fired out of your big red cannon.

There are of course some nice artifacts to drop into the blend with Ichor Wellspring and Mycosynth Wellspring. Both of these provide a small bonus (a card-draw or land-tutor) upon entering the battlefield and again when then hit the 'yard. The cool new card from Dark Ascension, Faithless Looting, allows a measure of filter to ensure your get some control over cards in your hand. We are a bit unsure of our inclusion of Noxious Revival - perhaps we're just greedy to get those two great burn spells back.

There is also some Shrines of Burning Rage which will accumulate counters and could eventually become a game-ending damage cannon. We've found during some games that our opponents were so distracted by the Shrine, they often did not see an alternate 'coup de grâce' being built. Also included is a card which really cannot be considered budget - Slagstorm. The price of about $7 (locally) reflects this burn spell of choice against current token generating builds. We suggest you replace with a damage spell of your choice (Red Sun's Zenith / Shock / whatever). We already had the Slagstorm and since this deck does not hardly have any creatures, it was the red board wiper of choice.

17x Mountain3x Rootbound Craig~There is also something else we want to give a try with - Liquimetal Coating and Ancient Grudge. Now this sounds like a lot of fun - tap to make on of your opponent's permanents (land, creature, planeswalker, ?) an artifact and then blow it up with the very handy artifact hater with flashback. Send in your ideas for a casual build with this please.

~The latest Magic the Gathering set ,Dark Ascension, has now been out since February 3rd. MTG Mint Card, has this list of the top ten selling Dark Ascension cards to date in February.